Russia – KNOM Radio Missionhttp://www.knom.org/wp
96.1 FM | 780 AM | Yours for Western AlaskaTue, 26 Sep 2017 18:12:37 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.259285469Focused on Climate Change, Governor of California Visits Nomehttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/09/08/focused-on-climate-change-governor-of-california-visits-nome/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/09/08/focused-on-climate-change-governor-of-california-visits-nome/#respondFri, 08 Sep 2017 23:36:40 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=30945Governor Jerry Brown of California was in Nome earlier this week to witness hands-on climate change research in this area and learn about Native perspective on the environmental issue. Some of the people the Governor met were Sandy and Carleton Tahbone, Austin Ahmasuk, and Vera Metcalf.]]>

It might be common for most Alaskans to hear that the Governor of Alaska visited Nome, but what if a Governor from the Lower 48 stopped by instead?

Governor Jerry Brown of California was in Nome earlier this week to witness hands-on climate change research in this area and learn about Native perspective on the environmental issue:

“My staff made some arrangements, and we got to talk to some Native Alaskans, and we also went out there (Council) and looked at the permafrost, actually put a pole in the ground and made contact with the ice, and heard from the researchers from the University of Alaska and the University of California. So, it was very helpful and very informative.”

Among those Native Alaskans the Governor met were Sandy and Carleton Tahbone, Austin Ahmasuk, and Vera Metcalf. Vera’s husband Bob Metcalf said of his experience with the Governor, “for me, it was pretty cool to meet the legendary Jerry Brown.”

Brown says it would be potentially enlightening for more of the world to hear from Native Alaskans and their perspective on climate change, as well:

“Our chances of going thousands of years are close to zero, if not zero, so we need to learn from Native peoples’ sustainability, and understand what is a society that’s based on subsistence, and what is the price of all our surplus?”

The Governor of California has personally taken on the issue of climate change and was representing his state at the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia after his two-day visit to Nome and Council. Brown says his knowledge of climate change has been broadened by his time spent in Western Alaska:

“First of all, I know from my own conversations with scientists that the Arctic area is warming at 2 to 2½ times the global average. Secondly, the issue of the permafrost and the methane that could be released into CO2, we’re talking about 2,000 gigatons that would absolutely overwhelm any effort to curb climate change.”

According to Brown, researchers he has spoken to are uncertain about when the numerous tons of CO2 will be released from the melting permafrost in the Arctic, so more research will have to be done.

Governor Jerry Brown of California thrusts pole into the permafrost with a group of researchers. Photo Credit: Office of Gov. Jerry Brown, used with permission (2017).

Regardless of what Brown learned about climate change after his first interactions with Nome and the region, the Governor will go home with a more defined palette for subsistence foods — or as he puts it, “I enjoyed moose more than I did whale,” said Brown.

Governor Brown is currently back in his home state of California and says he would like to visit Nome again in the future, although he is unsure as to if or when that would happen.

Image at top: Governor Jerry Brown of California poses for a picture with Sandy and Carleton Tahbone, Austin Ahmasuk, and others. Photo Credit: Office of Gov. Jerry Brown, used with permission (2017).

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/09/08/focused-on-climate-change-governor-of-california-visits-nome/feed/030945Melting the “Ice Curtain”http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/09/01/melting-the-ice-curtain/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/09/01/melting-the-ice-curtain/#respondFri, 01 Sep 2017 17:16:05 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=30855During the Cold War, the “Ice Curtain” divided the people of the Bering Strait. But in the past 30 years, amazing things have been happening on both sides of the Alaska–Russia border.]]>

The landscape looked just like Western Alaska, but to stand there felt like “being on a different planet,” one Nome man said.

Nearly 30 years ago, Alaska Native leaders, a handful of Nome residents, and media took part in a brief but historic flight crossing the boundary between the Soviet Union and the United States. The twenty-minute journey landed them in Provideniya, a city in Russia’s easternmost district, Chukotka. At the narrowest point, only 2.4 miles separated the two countries, but for four decades during the Cold War, the “Ice Curtain” that bifurcated the Bering Strait had separated families and split in two a people with a common history, language, and culture.

This “friendship flight” marked the beginning of a drastic transformation in the relationship between the US and the USSR. The flight reunited family members who, in some cases, hadn’t seen each other in 40 or 50 years. Long-estranged relatives conversed in their common Native language, catching up on a half century of family history. This special story, and others like it, are retold in a special, three-part series of KNOM’s Story49, piecing together a fascinating history of life on both sides of the Ice Curtain.

Provideniya, Russia, July 1989. Photo: Tom Busch, KNOM.

The friendship flight was only one of a series of interactions between Western Alaska and Chukotka during the end of the Cold War and in the decades since. Alaska Native dance ensembles and elders, gospel and jazz performers, and even a long-distance swimmer were all among those who carried goodwill and sparked reunions across the US-Russia border.

That border, in the decades after the fall of the USSR, has gone through cycles of openness and “bureaucratic, burdensome” difficulty, says one source in Story49. But even amid the resurgent red tape and expenses related to traveling through the Bering Strait border in 2017, there have been remarkable reunions of family and culture.

One current Nome resident, Ludmilla Kinok, was originally born in Russia and grew up listening, on her father’s radio, to the AM signals that were spilling across the Bering Strait from Alaska. KNOM was among them. As she began to visit Alaska on religious missions, she found joyful, powerful cultural connections, especially on St. Lawrence Island, where subsistence lifestyles were similar to what she knew in Russia — except with less government intervention in deciding who could practice subsistence culture and who couldn’t. She also found the language of her birth — Siberian Yup’ik, a language with its heart in the Bering Strait region — spoken more readily. “I felt connected right away,” she says.

A recent view of Little Diomede, the Alaskan island just 2.4 miles from its Russian counterpart, Big Diomede. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard, Petty Officer Richard Brahm.

Vibrant reconnections are also being established between former and current residents of the islands of Big and Little Diomede, straddling the Russia-Alaska border.

These stories, of a resilient culture that transcends national boundaries and politics, have made it to air thanks to your support. You can hear these vignettes of Alaska-Russia history right here at knom.org.

Image at top: Pictured, left to right: travel organizer Tandy Wallack, resident Etta Tall, and documentarian Lourdes Grobet. Etta grew up on the Alaska island of Little Diomede and has family ties to Russia’s Big Diomede island, just 2.4 miles away. Etta traveled with Tandy to a special family reunion years in the making.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/09/01/melting-the-ice-curtain/feed/030855NOAA To Consider Bowhead Whale Catch Limitshttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/08/18/noaa-to-consider-bowhead-whale-catch-limits/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/08/18/noaa-to-consider-bowhead-whale-catch-limits/#respondFri, 18 Aug 2017 21:45:15 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=30632The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced it intends to formally assess the impacts of issuing annual catch limits for the subsistence harvest of bowhead whales. Any changes would go into effect in 2019.]]>

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced it intends to formally assess the impacts of issuing annual catch limits for the subsistence harvest of bowhead whales.

It plans to prepare an environmental impact statement, which would recommend one of four anticipated alternatives, ranging from no catch limit to an annual strike limit of 67 bowhead whales with a 6-year quota of 336 landed whales. Any changes would go into effect in 2019.

Subsistence hunts for whales are regulated under the authority of the International Whaling Commission, which sets an overall subsistence catch limit for the stock based on the request of member countries on behalf of native communities. The United States and Russia file joint requests for Alaska and Russian Native subsistence hunts — in Alaska, cooperating with the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission.

The previous environmental impact statement issued by the NMFS, an agency under NOAA, in 2013, concluded that the overall effects of human activities associated with subsistence whaling results in only minor impacts on the western Arctic bowhead stock.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/08/18/noaa-to-consider-bowhead-whale-catch-limits/feed/030632Profile: After 70 Years, A Diomede Family Reunionhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/08/09/profile-after-70-years-a-diomede-family-reunion/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/08/09/profile-after-70-years-a-diomede-family-reunion/#respondWed, 09 Aug 2017 17:30:12 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=30469For years, growing up on the Alaskan island of Little Diomede, Etta Tall wondered about what life was like just 2.4 miles away, on Russia’s Big Diomede, where her grandfather grew up. Now, thanks to a special reunion, “I don't wonder anymore,” she says.]]>http://knom.org/wp-audio/2017/08/Diomede%20Reunion_Profile.mp3

The Diomede Islands lie in the middle of the Bering Strait. Little Diomede is part of Alaska and has a population of around 100. Big Diomede, just two and half miles away, belongs to Russia.

In 1948, at the beginning of the Cold War, the Soviet government established a military base on the island. The residents of Big Diomede were forced to relocate to mainland Russia, cutting off the Inupiat families that had lived and moved freely between the two islands for hundreds of years.

Nearly 70 years later, the separated families are just beginning to reconnect. KNOM spoke to some of the people working to make that happen. Click above to listen to Etta Tall and Tandy Wallack explain the project and what it means to them to lose — and rediscover — family and a shared heritage.

For more on the complicated relations between Alaska and Russia, check out Story49‘s three-part series: “Through The Ice Curtain.”

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/08/09/profile-after-70-years-a-diomede-family-reunion/feed/030469Story49 Presents “Through the Ice Curtain”http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/07/16/story49-presents-through-the-ice-curtain/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/07/16/story49-presents-through-the-ice-curtain/#commentsSun, 16 Jul 2017 22:00:16 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=30122In this three-part series, we take a look at the relationship between Alaska and Russia from before the Cold War all the way through the present day. Hear directly from the people who melted the “Ice Curtain,” and from the people working to keep it melted.]]>

2.4 miles of water are all that separate the islands of Big and Little Diomede at their closest point.

Yet, for forty years during the Cold War, the people of Little Diomede were prohibited from seeing their friends and relatives across the water. That’s because Big Diomede is part of Russia, and Little Diomede is part of the United States. Between them was the so-called “Ice Curtain”: the Iron Curtain of the Bering Strait.

In this three-part radio series, we’ll find out how, little by little, the Ice Curtain melted and Alaskans and Russians were able to reunite. We’ll hear from some of the major players from this era, including Jim Stimpfle and Dixie Belcher. We’ll also meet people who are currently working to keep the border open as it threatens to ice over once more.

To join us for the three part series on the air, tune in to KNOM on the following dates. You can also listen using the audio players below after the first air date.

Episode Three: “I’m A Dreamer, Too”
August 20th at 6pm; August 24th at 3pm

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/07/16/story49-presents-through-the-ice-curtain/feed/130122Ministry at the Edge of the Worldhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/05/01/ministry-at-the-edge-of-the-world/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/05/01/ministry-at-the-edge-of-the-world/#commentsMon, 01 May 2017 22:51:21 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=29150Nowhere is the need for rural Alaska broadcasting more evident than in the village of Diomede, a small community located on an island in the Bering Strait.]]>

Nowhere is the need for rural Alaska broadcasting more evident than in the village of Diomede, where Nome parish priest Father Tom Kuffel is visiting as this newsletter goes to press.

Father Tom serves several small, isolated parishes. Typically, he is the only Catholic priest within thousands of square miles. When not in Nome, he travels to villages by truck, small airplane, or even helicopter, to celebrate Mass and provide sacraments and ministry.

Diomede is a community of 170 people located along the cliff face of a small island in the Bering Strait, adjacent to the International Date Line. While on Diomede, Fr. Tom will celebrate Mass at Saint Jude Church. Once back in Nome, his voice will continue to be heard each Sunday morning: via a radio tuned to KNOM.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/05/01/ministry-at-the-edge-of-the-world/feed/229150Tell Us Your Stories About Chukotkahttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2017/02/02/tell-us-your-stories-about-chukotka/
Fri, 03 Feb 2017 01:00:53 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=27516Share your story with us! KNOM's Story49 is compiling stories about relationships between Alaskans and their neighbors across the Bering Strait. Спасибо! (Thanks!)]]>

Share your story with us! KNOM’s Story49 is compiling stories about relationships between Alaskans and their friends and family across the border, in Russia.

What's your experience with Chukotka? (See the prompts above for examples of what we're looking for.)

May We Follow-Up?*

As part of our Story49 project, would you permit KNOM to contact you for more about this topic?

Yes

No

Your Phone Number*

If "yes" to the question above, what's a good telephone number at which we can contact you? (We'll use it only to contact you about Story49 and will not keep the number on file for other purposes.)

]]>27516Waste Management Workshop, Visa-Free Travel Program Show Chukotka-Alaskan Relationshttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/09/28/waste-management-workshop-visa-free-travel-program-show-chukotka-alaskan-relations/
Wed, 28 Sep 2016 23:14:12 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=25262“I think that there’s actually a great deal of cooperation between Russia and Alaska or Chukotka and Alaska that we’re often not aware of," The Executive Director of The Institute of the North, Nils Andreassen remarked.]]>

The Environmental Protection Agency, Kawerak, the Institute of the North, and others organized a workshop in Nome last week to talk about how to manage solid and hazardous waste. A group of about 20 Russian officials and Russian rural-community members participated in the workshop.

Anahma Shannon, the Environmental Coordinator for Kawerak, describes why the workshop was hosted in Nome specifically for Chukotkans.

“Some of the people from the EPA on the American side had been to Chukotka, had seen the landfills in some of the villages and felt like their people there are facing many of the same problems that we are, and because the Bering Straits region has developed a really great hazardous waste recycling program for things like electronic waste, lead acid batteries, all that stuff, they wanted to educate Chukotkans about ways they can start a program similar to that,” said Shannon.

Besides sharing information, Shannon says there was a sharing of culture, as well.

She mentioned a lot of technical information was shared, “about solid waste management, hazards and toxics, but then, also, a lot of cultural exchange in some of the presentations where they talked about hunting practices and showed a lot of old pictures and traditional methods. So I think that people from both sides really felt like, yeah, we’ve got all the same stuff going on, on both sides of the Strait.”

Nils Andreassen is the Executive Director of the Institute of the North. He was also in Nome last week and says the workshop was structured to allow the sharing of information between Chukotkans and Alaskans.

Andreassen believes this more than two day long workshop is only one part of the ongoing conversation between the two groups separated by the Bering Sea.

“I think that there’s actually a great deal of cooperation between Russia and Alaska or Chukotka and Alaska that we’re often not aware of,” Andreassen remarked, “And there are regularly exchanges between the two with delegations interested in land and park management, in oil spill response, in small non-commercial aviation, all kinds of issues that individuals from Russia are coming to Alaska to learn more about and, I think, take home best practices while sharing what they’re doing.”

One such example of this cooperation comes in the form of the Bering Strait Region “Visa-Free” Travel program. Kyle Fielding, an economics officer with the Office of Russian Affairs at the State Department in Washington, D.C., helps to oversee the program and communicates with the regional chief commissioner in Nome, Vera Metcalf.

Fielding coordinated his visit to Nome to overlap with the Russians’ trip to Nome last week. After meeting some of the Chukotkans who use the visa-free travel program to visit their relatives in the Nome or Kobuk census areas, Fielding says he witnessed the purpose of this program firsthand and sees how it can benefit all groups involved.

He stated, “this helps maintain people-to-people ties between communities who have, historically had, links or are members of the same tribe or group. It helps them maintain their ties through practice of language, through people-to-people contact, and thus, it benefits the U.S. by helping maintaining people-to-people contact between those communities on both sides.”

According to Fielding, there is no foreseeable threat to the existence of the visa-free travel program, and currently, it has no expiration date. Any follow up from the waste management workshop in Nome and travel program could create more opportunities in the future for Chukotkans and Alaskans to develop connections and share their culture.

Video below: a joint performance of Nome’s St. Lawrence Island Singers and Dancers with a visiting dance troupe from Chukotka. Video courtesy of Anahma Shannon, Kawerak.

]]>25262Russia Launches World’s Largest Icebreaker, Arctic Coast Guards Work to Keep the Peacehttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/06/20/russia-launches-worlds-largest-icebreaker-arctic-coast-guards-keep-the-peace/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/06/20/russia-launches-worlds-largest-icebreaker-arctic-coast-guards-keep-the-peace/#commentsMon, 20 Jun 2016 15:00:44 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=23422Some worry the Arctic could serve as the next stage for international conflict, but coast guards across the region are busy laying the groundwork for cooperation.]]>

Nome, Alaska — Activity in the Arctic is on the rise.

Retreating sea ice and rising ship traffic have some worried the region could serve as the next stage for international conflict, but coast guards across the Arctic are busy laying the groundwork for cooperation.

Russia just launched the largest, most powerful icebreaker in the world.

Blue and red balloons fly through the air as onlookers cheer from the docks at St. Petersburg shipyard. It’s a massive vessel, bright blue with the Russian flag painted front and center on the bow of the boat.

The icebreaker is the first in a series of ships the nation plans to launch in the coming years, and that worries many, since Russia’s icebreaker fleet is larger than every other Arctic nation combined.

But Andreas Østhagen said that isn’t foreshowing an Arctic-style arms race.

“I don’t think it’s all about counting icebreakers, as some tend to do in the Arctic,” Østhagen said.

Østhagen works for the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies in Oslo. According to Østhagen, what’s more important is how the captains of those icebreakers cooperate.

In an article recently published in the Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Østhagen argues coast guards are the key to keeping the peace in the far north.

“All the Arctic coast guards have different institutional setups,” Østhagen explained. “They have different capabilities, or lack of capabilities, so I think sharing information and sharing best practices is key.”

They’ve been doing just that through the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, established last fall. Leaders representing the coast guards of all eight Arctic nations gathered again in Boston recently to sign a multi-year strategic plan for the Arctic.

That joint agreement joins an increasingly lengthy list of international accords for the region. Namely, the Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement, adopted in 2011, and the Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution, Preparedness and Response in the Arctic, adopted in 2013.

Ultimately, Østhagen said, the severe weather and remoteness of the region necessitates cooperation between coast guards.

“If an incident were to occur, let’s say an oil spill actually took place in the Arctic or a cruise ship were to go down in the Northwest Passage or around Greenland or in the Bering Sea or Barents Sea, then everyone would have the interest of trying to save these people, trying to minimize damage,” Østhagen said.

An incident did occur in 2014 when a Korean fishing vessel went down in the Bering Sea.

At the Glacier Conference in Anchorage last fall, Rear Admiral Dan Abel said the Coast Guard was in constant communication with Russian search and rescue efforts.

“We were posting messages, we were synchronizing their response, we were synchronizing what South Korea was sending,” Abel said, “and at the tactical level, things were working extremely well.”

While nearly everyone aboard the vessel died at sea, Abel said both the US and Russia shared the same objective.

“When it comes to saving lives and protecting the environment, those are kind of universally accepted goods that both countries realize should be beyond any geopolitical interests.”

Those geopolitics interests have come to a head recent years, with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and resulting international sanctions.

Because of that and lingering Cold War tensions, Abel said he’s not completely carefree when he sends the Healy, one of only two American icebreakers, into the Arctic.

“There is no buddy system for her,” Abel explained. “If she dings a prop [or] she has some problem with a reduction gear, there’s nothing with an American flag that’s going to come save her.”

Abel said it’s those solo voyages in the Arctic that keep him up at night.

“If you extend that far into some very hostile area, she’s a lone vessel out there, and we certainly wish her a safe voyage, get her work done, and get her home.”

The Healy just set sail for its first solo trip in the Arctic this season. It’s not as strong or shiny as Russia’s newest icebreaker, but with less emphasis on military operations and more on research, for now, it doesn’t have to be.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/06/20/russia-launches-worlds-largest-icebreaker-arctic-coast-guards-keep-the-peace/feed/123422Russian and American Officials Sign Wildlife Management Agreementhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/03/25/russian-and-american-officials-sign-wildlife-management-agreement/
Fri, 25 Mar 2016 22:57:10 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=22089Cooperation across the Bering Strait was strengthened when the US and Russia signed a joint wildlife agreement. ]]>

Cooperation across the Bering Strait was recently strengthened when the U.S. and Russia signed a joint wildlife agreement.

Officials from the two Arctic nations met in San Diego from March 22-24 to discuss polar bear and snow goose monitoring efforts in Alaska and Chukotka.

Steven Kohl heads the Eurasian efforts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and was at the meeting.

“So many of these animals spend part of the year on the Russian side of the international dateline and part of the year on the Alaskan side,” Kohl explained.

It’s for that reason that the two nations have met every two or three years since 1972. That’s when the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the original environmental agreement despite Cold War tensions. Kohl says current relations between the two nations still aren’t getting in the way of joint management efforts.

“Things have gone very well,” Kohl assured. “On both sides, scientists and administrators are making a concerted effort to keep things going, even during the rough times the two countries are experiencing in their relations right now.”

James Kurth, Deputy Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, signed off on the agreement last week alongside his Russian counterpart Amirkhan Amirkhanov.

Kohl says the two parties plan to meet again in Anchorage this November. They’ll review survey data and set quotas for polar bear and snow goose populations. He says in the next two years, Russian and American scientists will also be collaborating on a walrus survey in the Bering Sea.